Words That Are Both Nouns and Verbs: 1 in 4 Common Words

ByRandomWordMaker Team

A quarter of common English words can work as both a noun and a verb: 2,128 of the 8,366 common words in our list (25.4%). Among the easiest words the share rises to 37.8%. Among hard words it falls to 9.7%. You can love someone and feel love, help a friend or get help.

Key facts

  • 3,139 words in our list can be both a noun and a verb.
  • That is 37.8% of easy words, 25.4% of common words and 9.7% of hard words.
  • 46 words, 41 of them common, can be a noun, verb, adjective and adverb, like “back”, “clean” and “well”.
Bar chart of the share of words that can be both nouns and verbs, by difficulty
Share of words that can be both a noun and a verb, by difficulty level. Our analysis using WordNet.

How English makes them

English turns nouns into verbs and verbs into nouns without changing the word. Linguists call it conversion or zero derivation. It is why you can email someone an email, text a text or google something. Old English had more word endings that marked a word’s type. As those endings wore away in Middle English, the same form could slip easily between roles.

40 everyday examples

These are the most frequent easy words in our list that can be both:

like, time, get, people, know, see, make, think, back, want, go, well, even, need, right, work, still, take, say, last, love, man, home, look, use, part, state, find, help, game, give, house, place, school, end, show, feel, team, keep, put.

Words that can be four types

41 common words can be a noun, a verb, an adjective and an adverb. A few favourites:

  • back: the back of the room, back a plan, the back door, come back.
  • clean: give it a clean, clean the floor, a clean shirt, clean forgot.
  • still: a still from a film, still the water, a still lake, still waiting.
  • light: turn on the light, light a candle, a light bag, travel light.

Others include clear, close, double, fast, fine, free, home, low, plain, quiet, right, round, short, square, steady, true and wrong.

Try it

Generate a few words with the random verb generator and challenge students to use each one as a noun too. It works surprisingly often, and it is a quick, fun grammar warm-up.

Sources